• Age: 13 to 18
• Grade: 8 to 12
• Reading age: 12 to 18

In the second installment of the Desert Legends Trilogy, Ghost Moon follows young James Doolen's story after he discovers the terrible truth about his father in Written in Blood. The year is 1878, and young Jim is not yet ready to return to Canada. Instead he heads up to New Mexico in hopes of finding work and building a life. On the way he meets Bill Bonney (later to be known as Billy the Kid), who takes him to a ranch south of the town of Lincoln, where they both find work as cowboys. Little does Jim know that he is about to get caught up in a vicious battle for the lucrative army contracts with nearby Fort Stanton. As the violence explodes around him, Jim becomes a helpless witness to cold-blooded murder and watches as Bill swears revenge and leads a gang of killers into the hills. However hard he tries, Jim can't escape the violence and is finally drawn into its bloody conclusion on the streets of Lincoln.

John Wilson was born in 1951 in Edinburgh, Scotland. He did his early growing up on the Island of Skye and in Paisley, near Glasgow. From 1969 to 1974, he attended the University of St. Andrews where he took an Honours B.Sc.. in Geology and never played golf once. He took a position with the Geological Survey of Rhodesia (Zimbabwe). In his two years there, he mapped rocks, dodged land mines and watched the country sink ever deeper into civil war. Shortly before he was due to be called into the army, John retreated back to Britain on his way to the safety of Canada. He settled on Calgary where geology was booming and the only danger was freezing to death in January. In 1979, he moved to Edmonton to take up a post with the Alberta Geological Survey. In 1988 he sold a feature article to the Globe and Mail. This fueled a smouldering mid-life crisis and he took up freelance writing full-time. With some success, John mined the experiences of his travels for articles, journalism and photo essays. He even began to express himself poetically and, with a young family, began writing children's stories. He moved to Nanaimo and then Lantzville on Vancouver Island. John has been widely published by a number of Canadian presses, with his acolades including a shortlisting for the Governor General’s Award.

John Wilson's profile page

• Commended, CCBC Best Books
• Commended, TriState YA Review Group Book of Note

"[This] coming-of-age tale is filled with history, including an eyewitness account about what really happened at the Alamo, which is again referenced in the climax. Wilson, an award-winning Canadian author, captures the dichotomy building in Jim as he seeks his place in a world rife with violence and treachery."

VOYA

"Action fans will thrill to the gunplay and other dangers. James' conflicting feelings about his archetypically dangerous friend—and also a telling conversation with an old Mexican survivor of the Alamo about the difference between legend and reality—introduce thought provoking elements. A tale of the Old West with a sturdy historical base and nary a dull moment."

Kirkus Reviews

"A perfect book for boys looking to experience life during the Wild West."

Tri State YA Book Review Committee